Daimonzaka → Nachi Falls Nachi
GO ’26 ◎Stone, cedar, stairs, water; a short walk that carries more gravity than its distance suggests.
A Small Guide to Kumano Kodo
Kii-Katsuura / Shingū / Nachi · Visited and curated by André
Please find my list of recommendations for a beautiful few days walking around Kumano below.
Walk
Stone, cedar, stairs, water; a short walk that carries more gravity than its distance suggests.
Look
Kumano Nachi Taisha Nachi
GO ’26 ◎Shrine, waterfall, mountain, and the feeling that landscape came before architecture.
Seiganto-ji Nachi
GO ’26 ◎The pagoda-and-waterfall image is famous for a reason; still, go past the image.
Nachi Falls Nachi
GO ’26 ◎Water as presence; loud, vertical, and older than every explanation around it.
Kumano Hayatama Taisha Shingū
GO ’26A quieter Kumano gravity in town; good after the train, before the next walk.
Katsuura Port Tuna Auction Kii-Katsuura
GO ’26Japan’s biggest fresh-tuna landing; from a second-floor deck you watch the morning auction, around seven most days but not Saturdays, rows of gleaming tuna and brokers working the floor, five minutes from the station.
Shirahama Shirahama
GO ’26A white-sand onsen town up the west coast; a good stop on the way in or out if you’re coming from Osaka or Kyoto, for the beach, the sea-cliffs, and an ancient bath at the water’s edge.
Minakata Kumagusu Museum Shirahama
GO ’26A museum to Minakata Kumagusu, the self-taught naturalist who catalogued slime moulds by the thousand, lectured the Emperor on them, and fought the shrine mergers that would have cleared these Kumano forests; ocean views from the top.
Eat
Oshokuji Dokoro Hirokichi Kii-Katsuura
GO ’26 ◎One of the finest meals I’ve had anywhere; small, intentional cooking that lets great ingredients lead, a short walk up from the harbour.
Yakiniku Hige Shingū
GO ’26 ◎A yakiniku counter grilling certified Kumano beef, the only place in Wakayama licensed to serve it, and fifty years at it; marbled wagyu over the coals with a house sauce that hasn’t changed, walkable from Shingū Station.
Coffee
Tanpuku Shingū
GO ’26Good specialty coffee (and cake) a few minutes from Shingū Station; as much a gathering point for the Kumano Kodo walking community as a café.
Architecture
Hotel Urashima Kii-Katsuura
GO ’26The area’s iconic hot-spring hotel, out on a cape you reach by its own boat; the Bokidō bath is the largest natural sea-cave onsen in Japan, open to the Pacific and best at sunrise, and the Space Walker, a 150-metre escalator bored up through the mountain, climbs to a summit bath and a 360° view.
Move
Kii-Katsuura Station Kii-Katsuura
GO ’26Not a destination but the useful hinge: trains, buses, rain, walking legs, and the next temple.
Shingū Station Shingū
GO ’26A practical base for shrines, rivers, buses, and plans that change with the weather.
Hongū Hongū
GO ’26The pilgrimage’s pivot; buses run up the Kumano River from Shingū to Hongū, and from here more fan out to the trailheads and onsen villages of the Nakahechi.
A small ritual
Start early Kumano
GO ’26Walk before the day becomes humid and full; buy water, trust the buses, and let the first hour be quiet.
A swim in the Pacific Nachi Bay
GO ’26 ◎After a day on the trail, the Pacific at Nachi Bay; the little station sits almost on the sand, so you step off the train and straight into the sea.